


Rising Tide

by MintChocolateLeaves



Series: Launch Failure [2]
Category: Magic Kaito, 名探偵コナン | Detective Conan | Case Closed
Genre: Drabble Length Chapters, F/M, Space Pirates AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-26
Updated: 2019-08-03
Packaged: 2020-07-20 09:22:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19989775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MintChocolateLeaves/pseuds/MintChocolateLeaves
Summary: Every galactic takeover has its victims; Kaito won't be one of them. He'll find a way to fight back against the system and he'll start by reclaiming his father's ship: TheS.S. Pandora.Prequel to'Jump Ship'.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So I have a lot of backstory for Kaito and his crew that won't necessarily make it into the main 'Jump Ship' fic, so I decided to write the backstory up into it's own fic. The prequel is set about five years prior. I hope you enjoy~

_Ten years ago_

_-_

The man is going to die.

He's a pirate after all, responsible for piracy and treason towards the galactic federation, and the punishment for such a crime includes execution. In the old days - pre-takeover - they'd have imprisoned him, left him to rot while delaying the inevitable hanging that would leave him unable to spread any more of his lies.

Now, his execution will come quickly.

Their prisoner is going to die, and while it will be painful, at least it will be quick. The interrogation, arguably to some, the worst part of the process, is over, efficiently carried out but with little feedback. It's the luck of the draw, it seems. Not every interrogation can breed results, and while it's frustrating because they should know _more,_ because there is punishment in not gaining information, there is nothing else they can do.

Even if logic dictates that they should press more, _dig deeper._

The prisoner's name is Kuroba Toichi.

Some of the only information that he had relented. Hair swept out of his eyes - once slicked back with gel, but now only with water - he could have been considered fashionable once. Records bare from his life past his teenage years, they know, at least, that he was born on Earth, that his family was once working class, before they fell to pirate status.

His family - all honest people, prior to death - has had their names tarnished due to his criminalities.

"I know you're not meant to be down here," Kuroba Toichi says, from the confines of his cell. There's not a lot of space inside, just his bunk and a small cubicle that drips water beneath it every time he flushes the cistern. It's dark, too, but Toichi's eyes have long since adjusted.

It's not hard to make out the silhouette of a child that is peering around the wall.

"No one will remember it," the child says, and it is not arrogance that tinges his voice, but rather, regret. He is soft spoken, the words not musical but bordering on melodic. Hypnotic. "I wanted to talk to you before they take you away."

 _To die,_ goes unsaid.

Lesser men would flinch away from the reminder, but Toichi is a 'pirate' who has stood atop a ship staring his death in the eye for years. He tenses, and his lips shift into a wry smile, sardonic, but he does not flinch.

"What do you want to talk about?"

The child shuffles forward, and it's easier now to take note of his features. Toichi had seen him before, during the interrogations, but whenever he'd looked there had been no trace of emotion, nothing to convince him that this was a boy and not a machine in a child's body.

Apparently they'd been developing those.

There is little light but still the boy's eyes reflect gold specks, the colours dancing like a kaleidoscope, trance-like, it would be so easy to get lost in a hypnotic state like that. He almost feels his lips loosening just by glancing into-

Toichi blinks. Squints his eyes shut, and when he opens them again, the flecks of gold are less bright. The child shrugs, as if to say, _it was worth trying._

"They say you're a bad person." He shifts, runs a hand through strands of blond hair. "They say you were responsible for deaths and the theft of medical product, leaving so many without, but not once did I sense your guilt."

Oh, that explains a lot, Toichi thinks.

He raises an eyebrow. "Oh, I'm definitely guilty of those, I claimed ownership of my crimes from the very beginning."

"I know you did," this time, the child snaps. "But you don't feel guilty about it. It doesn't - you don't feel bad about what you've done."

"Why would I feel bad? I stand by my actions."

"My family died due to those actions," a silence washes through the cells. Unnatural, and extended, it feels almost like despair pooling in his chest. It constricts around his throat, leaves him gasping for breath, tears pricking at his eyelids. It feels like grief, something that had been condensed for so long that now the backlash feels like a shockwave through his emotions. "Why don't you feel guilty for that?"

The feeling doesn't lessen. If anything, it expands.

Toichi is barely able to breath out, "I wasn't responsible, but I'm sorry all the same."

His interrogations, at least, make more sense. The despair is not his, not naturally, but it has been transferred, sent over as if through an emotional wifi. Toichi hasn't learned how to reject it, and so, it continues.

Until finally, as if a noose being cut, he collapses back against his cell wall, his chest loosening as the child sighs. He says, "No one is ever responsible."

Not that they would admit. But Toichi is no murderer, not to those who are innocent, not to anyone but those trying to kill his family first. He really _isn't_ responsible.

A pause, and then: "You have a request… for me?"

Toichi blinks. He asks, "Do I?"

"Yes," a shoe scuffles against polymer flooring. "I can feel it on the edge of your consciousness. The minute your heart rate rose, you wanted to ask."

"You're skilled as an effector, aren't you?" Toichi watches, doesn't know how to react when the boy pulls a face, cringing away. "I thought the _Sagacita_ race were a dying breed."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

He probably doesn't. The child isn't even a teenager yet. Probably doesn't know about how his race is being hunted down by the intergalactic federation, to erase their insight from being used against the system rather than for it.

"I'm sure you will one day." Another pause, hesitation. "I did have a request though, you're right."

"Tell me."

"When they kill me," Toichi says, voice slow, "take my fear and my pain. Don't let me scream during the broadcast."

The child visibly stiffens.

Capable of instilling his own despair onto a person, to sense the thoughts at the edge of a person's consciousness, it would be no impossible feat to take something away. But once stolen, it cannot be placed back. Perhaps he knows that he will be taking a piece of Toichi and keeping it with him.

"I don-" It's a cruel thing to ask of a child, Toichi knows, but he is a figurehead, and the figurehead cannot be seen to lose. "But you're bad too-"

"A secret between us," Toichi says, although he already knows the child is likely to pass the information on. It's risky, but he decides on it anyway. "I have a son. He'll see the broadcast, and I don't want his last memory to include my pain or my fear."

For a moment, there is hesitation, and then, something akin to understanding spreads across his face. The child says, "When my grandmother… died, there was so much blood and pain. I wouldn't want that for-"

He trails off, almost as if he'd heard the name whispered into his ears, almost as if he'd been trying _not to._

"I'll give you calm," he says, quiet. "But not for you. For him."

"Thank you," Toichi says. He'll need it for his final poker face.


	2. Chapter 2

_Present day_

_**-** _

_"And I hereby sentence you - Kuroba Toichi - to death."_

Blue light flickers, showing the image of a man long disappeared, as a finger brushes up, pausing the footage. Static runs through it, old footage paused too often on a machine running out of battery. Perhaps the mute button should be turned on, but the button is stuck, unable to be turned off.

Kaito glances at the holographic footage of his father, and lets out a soft sigh.

Perhaps it's morbid to watch the footage of his father dying, but some days, the broadcast is the only thing he finds himself capable of focusing on. The announcers voice is ingrained into his memory, barely audible anymore, just background noise amidst the sound of his heartbeat in his ears.

Kuroba Toichi, alive and standing tall.

Unafraid.

"Hey Dad," Kaito says, glancing at the hologram as he places the projector at the edge of his bed, leaning down on his elbows so he can see his father more clearly. His own hair is pushed from his eyes, the style similar to his father's, as he tries to take in the man's full vestige.

Dark hair, check. Moustache that he'd always been fond of keeping, despite Kaito's insistence as a child that it looked like a caterpillar had taken route on his face, check. All things he remembers but can't always place on his father until the image is in front of him.

Without the hologram broadcast, Kaito thinks that he'd have forgotten what his father looked like a long time ago.

He supposes that's why he watches the broadcast of the man's death so often, because even the image of him dying won't remain ingrained in his mind forever. He'll start forgetting the details. And Kaito can't afford that.

"Training is a bit tedious," Kaito continues, as if the holograph of his father will be able to register the words. "But I'm still getting there. Even if the uniform sucks."

He pauses, hesitates as the sound of footsteps echoes outside his quarters. They're soft footsteps, not loud at all. Light on their feet, Kaito can only really think of one person it could be - not many people living in their compound are capable of wearing boots and remaining practically silent when they move.

It's why when his door opens without anyone knocking, he doesn't scramble to hide the hologram.

"Shouldn't you learn to knock, Aoko?"

Aoko crosses her arms as she closes the door, coming to a seat beside him. She's obviously just back from the training exercise her unit had been sent out on. Her hair, pulled out from the regulated bun during patrols, splays around her shoulders in what can only be described a mess. She unzips her jacket - woodland camo giving way to a black tank top - and slowly collapses onto his bed beside him.

"Why, because you're doing something illegal again?"

Kaito gives her a look dripping in feigned innocence. To her though, it's hardly effective - one of the only people he can't trick has always been Aoko.

"I'm doing nothing of the sort." He says.

Aoko leans up, takes a moment to stare at the hologram. It's difficult, to register the emotions that flicker across her face as she registers the image of the man she'd once called uncle. She bites down a sigh, leaning forward to flick the switch of the projector.

Kaito's father disappears with a final flicker of blue.

"You watch that broadcast much too often, you know?" Aoko says, dragging his pillow from beneath him and stealing it for herself. "It's bordering on obsessive."

"It's all I have of him."

It wasn't like they had any family photos anymore. After his father had been caught, Kaito's mother had taken the scarce few that they had of them together and destroyed them. It would be too dangerous to have pictures leading back to them. The federation would place the remaining Kuroba's under watch if they'd known.

Or worse, they'd have been declared guilty by association.

"I know," Aoko says, quieter. She's practically whispering. "But you shouldn't play the projector here. We're not even supposed to have projectors."

She has a point, and almost as if to show her that he gets it, Kaito leans to the edge of his bed, pries open one of the floorboards and places the projector back inside. He says, "other people knock."

"Well they won't if they begin to suspect you have a projector," Aoko says. "Especially one containing the broadcast of a so-called terrorist's death."

Kaito tries not to let the word get to him.

Terrorist.

Such an easy word to call someone who'd been fighting for freedom. Who'd tried to fight back - his father had been a revolutionary, a freedom fighter and Kaito feels his stomach twist whenever he's reminded that he was killed as something other than that.

He glowers regardless. Here with Aoko, he doesn't need to school his expression, and so he doesn't.

"I know," Aoko says, gently, pushing herself back up. "I don't exactly like it either. But we're here for a reason, and you shouldn't blow it because of the projector. Just… be more careful, okay?"

Kaito shifts. He breathes out a long sigh.

"Yeah," Kaito says. "Right."

He pushes himself up, takes a moment to glance around his room. Small, the room given to most cadets, most of the students who will enrol in the military following their graduation. But not him and Aoko.

That's not their plan.

They'll ride this hell through until graduation, and then, when Kaito is a qualified pilot, and Aoko a trained sharpshooter, they'll take back the S.S Pandora that had been stolen from them when his father was killed.

"You've got flight drills now, right?" Aoko asks, crossing her arms. "I wish you the best of luck."

"A pain in the ass," Kaito says, "what do I care about making sure we're in formation?"

Well, at least there isn't too long before graduation. They're in the final months, and now, they just need to begin planning the final details out. Then, they'll get their ship back and it'll be… worth it.

"You can't admit that it's a little fun?" Aoko says. "Scouting out the future competition?"

Kaito grins. He shakes his head, pushes himself up to his feet. "There's no competition involved. I'm the best pilot around. Everyone knows it."

"You're certainly the boldest," Aoko agrees. For a moment she hesitates and then: "How about a strategy meeting after dinner tonight. We can head to that old building just past the rec-hall?"

Planning their escape, their heist. Of course Kaito would accept.

"Sure," he says. "After dinner then."

**Author's Note:**

> The author loves comments.


End file.
